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Sunday, January 06, 2013

Rangers’ player rep Biron ‘excited’

It was an early-wake up call this morning for Rangers goalie and player representative Marty Biron as his son, Jacob, was due on the ice at 8 a.m. for his hockey game. Dad got to wake up the son with some good news that a tentative deal for a new CBA had been reached.

In other words, the lockout was over and dad was going back to work. (See previous Ranger Rants post for more details on tentative CBA agreement and link to Tom Gulitti’s article on NorthJersey.com).

“Obviously, I’m excited,” Biron said by telephone as he watched his son skate. “I woke up very early this morning with text messages of possibly having the agreement done. I went to wake up Jacob for hockey, he’s on the ice at 8, and the first thing I told him was, ‘The league is going to start again in the next little bit.’ He was excited. I’m excited for him. I’m excited for the fans. I’m excited for the arena people. Obviously, I’m excited for myself.”

Biron described himself as an optimist who believed a deal could be done, even if history might have suggested otherwise.

“No. 1, this was never possible if it weren’t for Don (Fehr) and his team, who there negotiating and on the calls, putting in so many hours into the process. We’ve got to thank all of that group for doing a great job,” said Biron, who spent the lockout at his Buffalo home. “It’s funny how all these things come down to the last minute, the last week, the wee hours of the night. I heard that some of those guys had been in their suits for almost 24 hours.

“I’m an eternal optimist,” Biron added. “I was always in the group that thought a deal would be done. But I lived the last lockout so I wouldn’t have been surprised. These things are very complicated. There is still work to do, it is a tentative agreement. I was optimistic but, at the same time, I’ve lived through it. I had been an optimist for months in 2004-05, all the way through the end of January. I was really informed this time around (as player rep) so I had a true sense of how things were going. I stayed neutral, not too high or low.”

Biron said he had yet to get on the phone this morning to start calling his teammates, though he added he has been in constant contact with them through the previous 48 hours as the NHLPA undertook a second vote to authorize Fehr to file a disclaimer of interest.

Luckily, the negotiations gained traction and this labor fight never really made it to the courts and legal system.

Biron said the players were still going to receive more information on the new CBA deal through upcoming conference calls.

As to whether it’s a good deal for the NHLPA, Biron said only time will tell.

“I think it’s hard to describe a deal until you’ve lived in it a few years,” Biron said. “When you’re trying to negotiate, you make projections for a year or two. We’re hoping that having this type of deal on the table right now not only will help avoid work stoppages in the future, it will help grow the game more in the present. That’s what we’re trying to do but it’s hard to project that. I think everybody is satisfied with what has been happening.”
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About

ANDREW GROSS covers the New York Rangers for The Record and Herald News, having joined the North Jersey Media Group in November 2007. Gross also covered the Rangers and New York Jets, as well as St. John’s basketball and Army football, for Gannett Newspapers and The Journal News (N.Y.). He graduated from Syracuse University in 1989 with a degree in newspaper journalism.